The present invention relates to a packet communication, in particular to an accounting method and an accounting system in a network in which information is distributed by packets between an information service provider and a plurality of portable terminals (or information terminals).
Portable terminals (or portable telephones) have rapidly come into wide use due to their convenience. Under the present conditions, the portable terminals (or the portable telephones) have exceeded fixed telephone terminals in number. Particularly, a portable terminal is used as communication means merely by voice communication between the portable terminals. In addition, a portable terminal is connected to a personal computer (PC), and. the like, so that the portable terminal is used as a data communication terminal with the other personal computers, and the like. Furthermore, a portable terminal (i-mode) having a function for being connected to an Internet is also used as an information terminal for carrying out an information search, or the like. Thus, it is a recent trend that the portable terminal (or portable information terminal) has high performance and multi-functions. Thereby, the portable terminals (or portable information terminals) have come into wide use, as mentioned above.
In a case of a general telephone terminal (telephone set), the general telephone terminal (telephone set) is fixed at a home or at an office. Therefore, a transmitting place and a receiving place are decided by the fixed telephone terminal (telephone set). In an accounting method for accounting a user with use fee, the use fee will be decided dependent on a region where a telephone terminal of a communication partner is existing (whether the telephone terminal of the communication partner is within the city, out of the city, or in a foreign country), on a time of talking with the communication partner, and so on. On the contrary, in a case of a portable terminal, a transmitting place moves as the owner of the portable terminal moves. It is therefore impossible to apply the portable terminal with an accounting method similar to that of the above-mentioned general telephone terminal. Particularly, in a case that a portable terminal, such as the i-mode, and the like is connected to an Internet (is subjected to an Internet access) by using a packet communication, a specific accounting method is generally used. Namely, in the specific accounting method, a user of the portable terminal pays the use fee responsive to numbers of transmitted and received packets from the portable telephone.
On the other hand, in Web review focusing on the use by a dial-up connection from a PC, a use of an Internet, such as transmission and reception of an electronic mail (e-mail), or the like, provision of various new services, such as distribution of graphic image, distribution of music by MP2 (multi-link protocol), program download by JAVA, and the like, have been started. In particular the amount of data downloaded to the portable terminal of the user side is greatly increased, as compared with conventional services focusing on transmission and reception of text data.
Conventional techniques in such a technical field or related fields are disclosed in, for example, unexamined Japanese patent publication 2000-78129, named “accounting method of information communication network”, unexamined Japanese patent publication 2000-78196, named “IP network accounting system”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Sho 63-290042, named “accounting system in a packet exchanging network”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 2-166942, named “count system of a packet communication fee”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 4-288746, named “communication right or wrong judging system in a communication between various kinds of packet exchanging systems”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 5-75649, named “accounted amount calculating apparatus of a packet communication network”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 6-164578, named “data terminal equipment”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 6-205050, named “multi-destination processing method of a connecting apparatus for connecting LAN with broad band ISDN”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 6-237316, named “ISDN communication processing apparatus”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 7-131557, named “accounting system in information communication”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 7-245627, named “packet measuring apparatus”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 9-107420, named “detailed account processing method in a communication processing system”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 11-27322, named “data receiving apparatus and data receiving method”, unexamined Japanese patent publication Hei 11-355355, named “distribution information registering method in a mobile communication network”, and the like.
FIG. 1 shows a typical example of an accounting system in a conventional packet communication network. In the conventional accounting system a user 1 of a terminal (for example, a portable terminal) 2 communicates with a reception destination 3, that is, a server apparatus of an information service provider, by way of a packet communication network 4. The packet communication network 4 has an exchange 5 to which an accounting apparatus 6 is connected. When the user 1 of the terminal 2 sends a transmission packet P1, the exchange 5 of the packet communication network 4 makes the transmission packet P1 be received by the reception destination 3. In addition, a packet that is an information from the reception destination 3 is sent to the terminal 2, as a reception packet P2, by way of the packet communication network 4. The exchange 5 of the packet communication network 4 then transmits numbers of packets 51 transmitted and received by the user 1 to the accounting apparatus 6 at an adequate timing. Consequently, the accounting apparatus 6 calculates the account for the user 1 based on the numbers of packets 51.
However, the conventional accounting system in the packet communication network has the following problems. Namely, if the specific accounting method for the use of an Internet by the dial-up connection from PC is applied, as it stands, to the Internet by using packets, an amount of accounts to be paid by the user accessing the Internet using packets becomes at least ten times as large as that in the use of an Internet by the dial-up connection from PC. This is too heavy a burden for the user. This is also a problem with regard to applying new techniques, such as distribution of graphic images to the Internet that is accessed by using the packet communication from the portable terminal, such as the i-mode, and the like, similarly to the use of the Internet by the dial-up connection from PC.
Further, for contents providers (information service providers) who use the Internet and wish to put advertisements widely by Web or e-mails, their free actions are inevitably restricted under the system that the user of the portable terminal bears all of the communication fees.